As modern society grows increasingly comfortable with gay people, fiction is slowly seeing more well-rounded gay supporting characters with onscreen love lives, whose sexuality is incidental to the character.
In fiction the most common use of this trope is a male GBF to a straight female protagonist but other permutations are very slowly beginning to appear.

Examples:

Lussuria from Katekyō Hitman Reborn!, whose flamboyant-ness is played for laughs. Though it starts getting ever so slightly disturbing when he's hitting on jail bait, and is insinuated to have necrophiliac tendencies as well.

Averted by Seiji Kisaragi, Mikako's gay friend in Gokinjo Monogatari. He's an extremely bishonen aspiring hairdresser and former fashion student with a rather flamboyant appearance, but he's portrayed as mature, talented and determined and is of great importance as an older brother/mentor figure for Mikako. What's best is he's not even gay, he's bisexual.

Petshop Of Horrors has a literal version of this trope. Wong, a rare mythical Tao Tieh (Tou Tetsu, goat-demon), tries to seduce D in order to make a meal out of him. D immediately sees through Wong's human disguise and decides to make the demon his pet. "Tetsu-chan" spends the rest of the series lounging around the petshop and providing much of the series' comic relief.

Ghost Talkers Daydream: Misaki's closest friend and co-worker, Shizue, is a lesbian. The subject only comes up once, in chapter 5, when Misaki asks her about why she chose to go public with it. But she changes her mind and drops it before Shizue can answer her.

Comic Books

Scott Pilgrim's gay best friend and roommate, Wallace Wells. (Also applies to The Film of the Book.) Downplayed in that his (very active) sex life clearly exists, though it doesn't get much attention due to Wallace's fairly small role in the series.

Ironically, Scott is more like Wallace's Straight Best Friend, since Wallace is the only one paying the bills. However, they're best friends, and Wallace occasionally cracks jokes about him being Scott's sugar-daddy.

In Kick-Ass, Stuck up Katie will only associate with Dave because she thinks nerdy, unpopular Dave is gay (a fact that Dave has shamelessly exploited in order to be allowed to hang out with the woman he crushes on). When she finds out, she has her boyfriend savagely beat him and then sends him sexually explicit photos to torment him with the fact that she'd never be romantically involved with him.

Dumbbell, of Ask Hoops and Dumbbell, meets a coworker who tries to turn him into one, gleefully suggesting they go shopping, clubbing, and check out boys together. When he brushes her off (as he hates shopping, doesn't drink and is already in a relationship), she just thinks he's being sassy. He's not amused by this.

L.A. Story is a rare example of a straight male lead with a Lesbian Best Friend (technically her orientation is never mentioned but it is clear which way she swings). In an interesting and revealing contrast to the standard Gay Best Friend, Ariel's sex life is never discussed on screen but she is shown living with a partner.

The German comedy Echte Kerle (in English, Regular Guys) centers around the straight main character, who is a Berlin police detective, and his gay housemate, who is a mechanic. In among all the Cringe Comedy and Mistaken for Gay, there are some legitimately touching moments, including a scene where the housemate chews him out for making stupid assumptions based on his sexuality.

The whole point of the film GBF was to deal with a lot of issues around being gay in a high school where there weren't any out gay people. The main character is treated like a hot commodity for the school's 3 alpha females, who are disappointed to find out he doesn't fit any of the usual gay stereotypes. Although his friend is a more stereotypical example.

Valentin in Blue Is the Warmest Color. He is a very supportive and understanding friend when he defends and consoles Adèle from their homophobic classmates.

Similar to the L.A. Story example above, Tell No One has a Gender Flipped version, with Helene being the lesbian best friend of main character Alexandre. Also like that film, Helene never talks about her sex life, but lives with a partner, Alexandre's sister (whom she refers to as "my wife"). However, she's also a well-rounded character in that she's the one who hires a lawyer for Alexandre when he's falsely accused of murder, and she's the one he confides in when he thinks his dead wife is still alive.

The Woman in Red: Buddy (Charles Grodin), who is gay but basically acts not very differently from Joey or Mikey.

An inverted example in The Living End. The gay protagonist, Jon, has a Darcy, his straight female best friend who seems to exist mainly to help him out with his relationship problems. She's a quirky artist, but her part of the plot deals mainly with how her worries about Jon take over her own life.

1931 film Millie finds protagonist Millie comforted, after finding out her husband is having an affair, by her best friends Helen and Angie. Helen and Angie are introduced in bed together, in lingerie. Later they take a vacation together. When Angie the Gold Digger lands a rich husband, Helen has a Drowning My Sorrows session with Millie.

Literature

Damien in the early The House of Night books. After Jack, who is annoyingly stereotyped, arrives the two of them share this role.

Lord Akeldama is Alexia's Gay Best Friend in the Alexia Tarabotti series, but while his sex life is off-screen and implied only, there is far more to his character than the typical Gay Best Friend.

Tina Fey's memoir Bossypants recounts how she realized that she thought of her gay male theater friends this way and that they did in fact have lives outside of being the appreciative audience to her "wisecracking precocious teen."

It was a major and deeply embarrassing teenage revelation. It must be how straight teenage boys feel when they realize those boobs they like have heads attached to them.

Gil Chesterton from Frasier is a similar character, taken further than Mr. Humphries is. The quirk is later cut entirely at one point when the previously-oblivious Gil finds out about his reputation and angrily declares himself to be a happily married man.

But on one of the occasions Frasier is Mistaken for Gay, Gil is there to welcome him out of the closet. His unseen wife is often referred to in a manner that strongly suggests she's a beard.

The plot of that episode was kicked off by Frasier entering a gay bar, trying to confront Roz's new boyfriend, who he thought he'd seen walk in. Gil can be seen trying to discreetly enter the same bar during the episode's ending credits.

Marc St. James from Ugly Betty is Wilhelmina Slater's Gay Best Friend— to such an extent that she once turned to him and cried "Fly, my pretty! Fly!"

But inverted with Hugo Lombardi from the original Yo soy Betty, la fea, whose constant moodiness prompted that few people wanted to deal with him, and in fact he treats his elderly secretary Ines as his mascot, for better and for worse.

John, the secretary on NYPD Blue (At least, by the end of the show, Sipowicz started referring to him as "John", instead of "Gay John".)

On Glee, Kurt is Rachel's and Blaine is Tina's. An aversion however because they're both very well established main characters outside of their friendships. Plus, they're not friends because they're gay.

Rachel has an ugly habit of calling Kurt her "best gay". When she tries that on Elliot, he immediately tells her he hates it, because it makes him feel like a pet.

Sex and the City had two. Stanford Blatch was Carrie's from the start and Charlotte later got Anthony, who first appeared as the wedding planner for her ill-fated first marriage but stuck around for the rest of the series. Stanford subverted the trope towards the end of the series by gaining a hot boyfriend, though the boyfriend was nowhere to be seen in the feature film.

They were shown meeting up at a New Year's Eve party (Anthony appeared to be expecting Stanford) and kissing at midnight. Still, those two characters (who'd hated each other throughout the series) are just slammed together in the feature as the only gay men in NYC that can be paired together? And then they're married in the second movie.

Marco on Degrassi: The Next Generation. His male friends always have a certain subtext to them, that his female friends don't because he's gay. But in many episodes, he's seen hanging with Paige, Ellie, and Alex. A true Distaff Counterpart is Alex, who is introduced as hanging out in a mostly-male circle.

Sasan on Tori Spelling's semi-autobiographical sitcom So Notorious. The real person that the character is based off of is one of her closest friends since childhood and serves as her business and assets manager.

Maldwyn Novello Pughe in the 1978 BBC Wales comedy "Grand Slam". He's a camp gay among a group of largely salt-of-the earth heterosexual rugby fans who travel to Paris to see Wales play France. Although this is played for laughs to an extent, he's definitely "one of the gang" and accepted for who he is without being patronised. He's subjected to some good-natured teasing but no more than anyone else, proves he can give as good as he gets, and the viewer is left in no doubt that anyone who messed with him would have the rest of the guys to deal with too.

Rather bitterly deconstructed on The League of Gentlemen, with a self-declared Fag Hag character who appears in a few sketches. She blithely describes her gay friends in this manner, while they — usually played by the openly-gay Mark Gatiss — roll their eyes and try to sneak away while she's not looking.

Shane in Faking It is this to pretty much everyone in that school except for Lauren, including male Liam. Interestingly, Shane is played by Michael Willett, the Gay Best Friend in G.B.F. in the Film section.

An Invoked Trope in Warehouse 13, where Claudia repeatedly refers to the Straight Gay Steve Jinks as her "gay bestie". Since Jinksy hates all gay stereotypes, he's not amused by this, although he is her best friend.

Played with in Happy Endings. Penny and Max are very close friends, but due to Max's lack of stereotypical "gay" traits, their relationship isn't of the usual type associated with this trope. Once episode has Penny deciding she wants a campy friend, but the guy she meets turns out to be a total jerk, so she dumps him. In the end, Max decides that Penny is closer to being his gay friend, despite Penny being a straight woman.

Felix Dawkins, Sarah's foster brother, serves as this to the all-female "Clone Club" on Orphan Black, especially to straight-laced Allison. He does at least get attempts at a love life and being played for sexy rather than only for comedy.

The premise of One Big Happy is a straight guy his lesbian best friend deciding to have a baby together.

On iZombie, Lowell spends an episode playing this role for Liv after eating a gay brain. She starts out being weirded out by the way he's not interested in kissing her, but once he explains the situation and promises that the next brain he eats will be "ludicrously straight", she ends up having fun with it.

Albert is this to his wife Beatrice on Another Period. They're married, but because Albert is gay, their relationship is one of friends. Albert is having an affair with Beatrice's sister's husband — who's also gay — and Beatrice is having an affair with her twinbrother.

Kevin in Archie Comics is friends with Betty and Veronica but doesn't count. Kevin in Riverdale however is an example. Though not quite Camp Gay, Kevin is more effeminate than his Straight Gay comic counterpart and is presented more in this fashion. Cheryl even makes a crack at this. Unlike other Gay Best Friends, Kevin actually has an active sex life (much more than Betty's even). Although his boyfriend, Joaquin, leaves at the end of the first season.

Cheryl: I'm senior captain of the River Vixens.

Kevin: Is cheerleading still a thing?

Cheryl: Is being a 'gay best friend' still a thing?

Parodied to hilarious effect in the "Have You Heard About Our John?" sketches on The Catherine Tate Show. A young man named John comes out to his stereotypical Irish parents (long-suffering, stoic father and talkative, violent, gossipy mother)—and the first thing his "ma" asks him to do is see if she "has the hips" for a skirt she's bought. John, though, is as Straight Gay as they come—he prefers watching football (soccer to U.S. viewers) and getting beers with his mates than anything stereotypical. But as the sketches progress, everyone in town, from a neighbor to some local thugs to a priest to John's grandmother, decides that John is their new Gay Best Friend: they ask him for advice on fashion and interior decorating, assume he must constantly think about sex (with his mother showing him scantily-clad men and his grandmother's Christmas present being money for a rent boy), and generally act as if he's the walking embodiment of every gay trope under the sun. The sheer disconnect between John's actual behavior and, apparently, the whole world's assumptions, drives the humor.

In French sitcom Les Filles d'à côté, Camp Gay gym manager Gérard is the GBF to the three girls who share the apartment. He also manages to be this to Daniel and Marc in the flat next door.

Stand Up Comedy

Patton Oswalt has a bit on his Finest Hour CD where he recalls being asked to read for a factory-produced rom com that had one of these. He decided to read the part as if he was the dumbest Gay Best Friend ever, constantly suggesting the wrong advice for his straight female friend and being unable to come up with the snappy quips that the Gay Best Friend cliche is notorious for.

"You and your two friends— when the three of you get together, it's like... um. Who are the guys with the muskets, what do they call those guys? Are they called Musketeers? Was I that close?!"

Video Games

The Shadow Hearts series has to include at least one Gay Best Friend who provides useful services per game. Wanderer Meiyuan from the original was only mildly flamboyant at most and rather predatory, but the travelling shopkeepers in Covenant and From the New World were incredibly over-the-top Flamboyant Gays bordering dangerously on Camp Gays. This is balanced by having a heroic gay superhero vampire wrestler (yes, all of those) party member. He's only camp in the superhero sense, his gayness isn't really played up that much except in the Great Gama sidequest, where you wrestle with him at the end, while Anastasia acts like a typical Yaoi Fangirl, and Yuri is nauseous (forgetting he can turn into a demon and fly away).

Carla's neighbor in Fahrenheit is openly gay and his role in the plot (aside from assisting her investigation a little) is to provide eerily accurate prophetic foreshadowing, bringing him into Magical Queer zone, as well.

Trevor in Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh starts out as this, but as his character develops it starts to be subverted, as he turns into more of a Straight GayHumphrey deliberately playing up the Camp Gay. It's further subverted when main character Curtis confesses his attraction for Trevor. At one point in Spoony'sLet's Play he calls Trevor the one interesting character he liked and didn't want to see brutally murdered. The same thing applied in the Something Awful LP of the game, with the Goons managing to track down and get an interview with Trevor's actor.

Night in the Woods features Gregg, who operates as this for Mae. However, Mae is a tomboy, so she and the Straight Gay Gregg tend to do more masculine, delinquent activities, like petty vandalism and loitering. The trope is somewhat subverted, however, since Mae is pansexual herself.

Webcomics

Bang from Blip. Though his relationship with K is a bit more vitriolic than usual.

Szark from Dominic Deegan became one of these over his run. He still gets to handle important plot points regardless. ("Battle For Barthis", for one — where he was vital to the plan — took place well after his transformation started.)

In It Sucks to Be Weegie!, Link is this for Luigi, frequently drinking and discussing their personal problems at the local bar.

Ménage à 3 had a minor version of this at times between Zii and Camp Gay Dillon, although he didn't give her much advice (and he's fairly sexually active in the comic), and later a more significant friendship between Amber and Dillon, which became central to spin-off comic Sticky Dilly Buns — see the note on that below.

When she learns that Ethan is gay, Robin pretends to be a lesbian in order to make him jealous, and thus produces a 'partner' whom she proudly refers to as "My lesbian!" to the point of not even learning her real name. While the woman is not an exaggerated stereotype used for comic effect but a perfectly ordinary, rather quiet and shy person, her entire purpose in the comic is based around her sexuality - and, it is hinted has now been outright stated, has a crush on Robin, partially explaining why she puts up with Robin's insensitivity. Robin later apologises, explaining that she's merely insecure and something of a Cloudcuckoolander, and the two become friends, and later lovers. (Just for completeness, the lesbian's name is eventually revealed to be Leslie Bean.)

Also hilariously discussed in an earlier joke: the recently un-closeted Ethan gets dragged into shoe-shopping with Robin and Amber. He's not very good at giving advice, leading Amber to call him "the worst gay friend ever". (Just for Rule of Funny, he was also wearing a purple shirt with "Gay Friend" on it)

Sticky Dilly Buns has the Camp Gay Dillon happy to be besties with any woman who comes within reach. He's quite sexually active, but otherwise he seems downright Genre Savvy about the trope:

His friendship with Amber is played, ahem, fairly straight. He doesn't seem to give her much advice, but she'd doubtless listen if he did.

Things get slightly more subversive with his relationship with Amber's uptight sister Ruby. He's determined to break through her shell, and gives her some good advice when they first start talking, especially with regard to dressing for her attempts to get a serious job. She acknowledges his help, and sounds as grateful as she ever manages for it. However, the next day, he decides to give her a makeover to help her find a boyfriend, despite her attempts to tell him that she doesn't want one, and throws a blubbering tantrum at the idea that they aren't going to work through every component of the trope.

In Welcome To Room 305 the only reason Kyung Ah shows an interest in Yoon Sung and Jung Hyun is because of the rumours that they're a gay couple (which isn't true and Jung Hyun is Mistaken for Gay anyway), of course neither of the two know that she's like that. Rose points out that this is an extremely narrow viewpoint.

The Cinema Snob review of Dear Santa featured "Bearyan", a parody of this trope who gives terrible advice to people of all genders which apparently often results in encouraging them to commit axe murders

Parodied in The Nostalgia Chick's crossover with Needs More Gay, where she tries to force Rantasmo reluctantly into the role, but is confused that his life revolves around her much less than advertised.

Chick: (complaining about makeup)

Rantasmo: My rights and dignity have been systematically marginalized... guuuurrrl.

Chick: (complaining about boys)

Rantasmo: I am going to be honest here, Lindsay. I have not been listening to anything you said. ...guurrrrl.

Western Animation

Xandir from Drawn Together (although he and his sexuality were the focus of at least one story, so he's not quite always a supporting character).

Clarence, GameaVision's audio designer, from Code Monkeys. He always wears a sparkling jumpsuits, sings in place of speaking, and makes many and blatant references to gay sex. Also, has "gay magic" such as the ability to fly.

Played literally in the Family Guy episode "Road to the Multiverse", where Chris wins a "genuine living homosexual" at a carnival. (The original trope name was Pet Homosexual.)

In another episode, Stewie invokes this trope when he claims that he's not worried about high school, feeling that the "worst case scenario" for him is that he'll end up as the "effeminate male friend of all the popular girls."

On The Simpsons, Julio carries business cards that say "Sassy Gay Friend". With the opposite side reading "Scheming Gay Enemy".

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